An adult gaur, also known as an Indian bison, listed on the Red List of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as ‘vulnerable’, died a tragic death in the Kothrud area of Pune on Wednesday 9 Dec 2020.

There is no conclusive evidence stating the cause of the animal’s death. Several theories are doing the rounds, but none seem to be supported by hard facts. In the case of a wild animal emergency, the Forest Dept. has to be the first responder as they are the only authority empowerment to deal with wildlife. In this case private NGOs also got themselves involved.

Why & with who’s permission?

There was little or no coordination between the rescuers, resulting in total chaos, culminating in the terrorized animal’s death.
Who is responsible for this?
We want to know the truth. If you believe this was an unnecessary death, please join SAS India.

We have filed a Right to Information (RTI) under the Right to Information Act 2005 to Maharashtra Forest Department. We have asked for information about the below questions:

1.What are the capacity and capabilities in terms of infrastructure and trained manpower available with the Pune forest department to carry out any animal rescue operation?
2.Do the forest department have any wildlife veterinarian on role available for such rescue operation?
3. There were two NGOs involved in this rescue operation, who authorized them to carry out this rescue operation?
4. Is these NGO has enough experience in rescuing gava?
5. What are the qualifications and experience of veterinarians involved in darting of said animal?
6. How many darts fired? And which was the medicine used at what dose?
7. It observed in few videos that one person injected a dart by hand when the animal was cornered and covered in a net? Was that dart necessary? Who was that person?
8. What is the total volume of medicine injected into an animal by dart to the said animal?
9. It is observed that there was absolutely no coordination between two NGOs everyone darting without communicating with each other? Which made this operation a killing mission
10. Animal died at what time? When postmortem performed? Who did the postmortem? Who authorized the person for doing a postmortem?
10. What samples collected and sent to the forensic chemical analysis of the quantity of anesthetic present in the body?
11. Is the postmortem performing vet has any previous experience in doing pm of gava or any wild animal please give details?
12. Is the postmortem was neutral and a third party was involved?